capturing/editing/conveting times with a PIII 850Mhz?

[CMP1223]

I am new to video editing and am planning on buying a Pinnacle Studio Deluxe to capture from Hi8 and buying a dedicated 40GB Harddrive (only need 2 hours of DV storage) for video. I have a Dell PIII 850Mhz, XP, and a 32MB Nvidia "Ultra" card. I have heard about hours of time needed for capture/editing/conversion. About how ling will it take to capture an hour of DV quality video w/ these specs? What about rendering transitions and small special effects? How long would it take to Convert DV to VCD format? Can I cheaply upgrade my CPU?

Thanks

Chris

[invisibler]

Hey Chris-
one of my computers has dual 850mhz processors...I have a DV500 card in that computer so transitions and some effects are done in real time...however here are my answers to your questions:

About how ling will it take to capture an hour of DV quality video w/ these specs?

think about this one Chris...this will take one hour

What about rendering transitions and small special effects?

a one second transition will take between 1-4 seconds...

How long would it take to Convert DV to VCD format?

I estimate it will take about 3X real time...1 hour of DV footage may take about 3 hours to convert to VCD compliant MPEG...

Can I cheaply upgrade my CPU?

Probably yes...if you built your computer yourself, go to the website of the company that manufactured your motherboard...but since you are asking, I assume you purchased a name-brand or pre-assembled computer...go to the website of the company that manufactured your computer or look in your manual...somewher in this info, you will find the maximum processor speed that your system can handle...if it is 850mhz, then you can't easily upgrade your CPU without replacing your motherboard...if it lists something higher than 850mhz as the max speed, such as 1.2ghz, than you can replace your processor with a new processor up to that max speed...

now the cool thing is, because most eBayers don't know better, you can probably sell your used 850mhz processor on www.eBay.com and buy a new, faster processor on www.pricewtch.com for just about the same price...then you just slide your old processor out and stick the new one in its place...

you are on the right track in terms of the CPU speed being the main factor in determining the speed of rendering and encoding your video, but in case you are wondering, an 850mhz CPU is more than adequeate to perform the tasks that you listed here...have fun

[CMP1223]

Thanks! I thought some cards didn't capture in real time, but I guess this one will! I can live with those render/conversion times, so I'll buy it soon

Thanks invisbler!